MONDAY'S SCORES
Belmont 90, @Eastern Illinois 56
@Morehead State 67, Tennessee State 54
@Murray State 79, Tennessee Tech 53
@UT Martin 76, SIUE 70
BELMONT 90, EASTERN ILLINOIS 56
CHARLESTON, Ill. - Belmont University men's basketball defeated Eastern Illinois, 90-56, Monday night.
Grayson Murphy handed out five assists to become the Ohio Valley Conference all-time career assist leader. Murphy's total of 702 assists eclipsed the standard of Eastern Kentucky's Bruce Jones, who held the record for 41 years. A Murphy assist to Nick Muszynski with 17:20 left broke the record.
Belmont held Eastern Illinois scoreless for nearly seven minutes during the first half, as six different Bruins scored during a decisive 20-0 run. Five straight points from Luke Smith made the score 26-6 midway through the first half.
Belmont (15-5, 5-2 OVC) scored 16 points off eight Eastern Illinois turnovers in the opening 20 minutes, leading 45-23 at halftime.
Muszynski led an 11-1 Belmont run to open the second half as the lead increased to 32, 56-24, with 16:40 left. Belmont got strong bench contributions from JaCobi Wood, Michael Shanks, EJ Bellinger and Tate Pierson as each player who saw action scored at least four points.
All told, Belmont shot 49 percent (33-of-67) from the field and made 14 3-point field goals. Belmont handed out 27 assists on 33 made field goals and created 12 steals.
Ben Sheppard led five Bruins in double figures with 15 points. Will Richard had 13 points, five rebounds and six assists, while Wood had 13 points, five rebounds, eight assists and two steals. Bellinger scored a career-high 12 points. Smith scored 11.
Paul Bizimana led Eastern Illinois (2-16, 0-6 OVC) with 20 points.
MOREHEAD STATE 67, TENNESSEE STATE 54
MOREHEAD, Ky. - Morehead State's Men's Basketball team limited visiting Tennessee State to only five field goals and just 16 percent efficiency in the second half as the Eagles won their 18th consecutive home game with a 67-54 victory over the Tigers at Johnson Arena Monday night.
MSU (15-5/7-0 OVC) ran its 2021-22 winning streak to an OVC-best nine games and won the season series over TSU (8-12/3-5 OVC) for the second straight season. The Eagles held TSU to just 5-for-31 shooting in the final half after pulling ahead 41-32 at the intermission. One more win, and MSU will have back-to-back double-digit game winning streaks in the last two seasons after reeling off 12 straight in 2020-21.
Meanwhile, the home team shot 47 percent overall (25-of-53) after nailing 57 percent (15-of-26) in the first 20 minutes. While the Eagles held the Tigers to the low shooting percentage in the second half, MSU hit 10-of-27 itself. MSU outscored the Tigers 26-22 after halftime.
Second-year center Johni Broome registered his 13th double-double with 17 points and 11 rebounds and also had six blocks for the second consecutive game and for the seventh time this season.
Point guard Ta'Lon Cooper, who paces the whole league and ranks fourth nationally in assists, dished out 10 helpers tonight and nearly had a double-double with nine points. It's the fourth game this year where Cooper has recorded double-digit assists.
Guards Tray Hollowell (13) and Skyelar Potter (11) also reached double-figures in the scoring column, combining for five of the Eagles' six three-pointers.
The game turned late in the first half, in the final four minutes. Trailing 28-27 with 4:43 to go before the break, Potter drilled a three-pointer that ignited an 11-2 run. The Eagles went on to lead by as much as 16 (59-43) in the final half before TSU cut that margin to as low as seven (61-54) in the final two minutes.
TSU's Carlos Marshall, Jr., paced all players with 22 points, while Kassim Nicholson had another double-double, his sixth of the year, with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
MURRAY STATE 79, TENNESSEE TECH 53
MURRAY, Ky. - The Murray State Racers improved to 8-0 in the Ohio Valley Conference with a 79-53 victory over the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles. The Racers won their eighth-straight game and have a home win streak of 12 in a row at the CFSB Center in Murray, Kentucky.
The Racers are 18-2 as they take on Tennessee Tech Thursday in Cookeville in a 6 p.m. tip.
KJ Williams posted his second consecutive double-double on 21 points and 11 rebounds, while Tevin Brown added 14 points and drew to within five 3-pointers of setting a new OVC career record. Justice Hill scored 11 points and dished out five assists.
After starting slow from the field, the Racers were down 11-2 a few minutes into the contest, but used a 13-0 run, capped by a 3-pointer by Brown, for a 16-11 lead at the 12:02 mark of the half. MSU pushed their lead to 13 at the 3:37 mark on a basket by Nicholas McMullen. The Racers enjoyed a 39-24 lead at the halftime intermission and were never threatened in the second half by outscoring Tech 40-29.
In one of their best defensive performances of the season, the Racers guarded Tech without fouling and held TTU to only three free throw attempts. MSU held TTU to 2-of-24 from the 3-point line and won the battle of the boards 46-29. The Racers scored 19 points off 15 TTU turnovers.
UT MARTIN 76, SIUE 70
MARTIN, Tenn. - The University of Tennessee at Martin swished 93.5 percent of its free throw attempts this evening, leading to a 76-70 victory over SIUE in Ohio Valley Conference men’s basketball action.
The Skyhawks (7-13, 3-5 OVC) knocked down 29 free throws in 31 tries, marking their most makes from the charity stripe against a NCAA Division I opponent since they canned 30 at SIUE on Jan. 24, 2011. UT Martin held a lead for 26 minutes and shot 24-of-25 from the free throw line in the second half to ensure the win.
A total of four Skyhawks generated double-digit scoring performances tonight, led by KJ Simon’s 24 points. David Didenko collected 14 points in 19 huge minutes off the bench while Koby Jeffries secured 12 points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals. Bernie Andre accumulated his second straight double-double (11 points, game-high 10 rebounds) for UT Martin, who led by as many as 14 points tonight.
SIUE (7-2, 1-5 OVC) also placed four scorers in double figures, led by Shamar Wright and Shaun Doss, Jr. with 15 points apiece. Ray’Sean Taylor and Cam Williams added 12 and 10 points, respectively, for the Cougars, who were held to 35.8 percent (24-for-67) shooting.
“Those first 16 minutes were about as ugly of a basketball game as you could draw up,” Skyhawk head coach Ryan Ridder said. “I think part of that was our physicality and just both teams playing super hard defensively. I thought we gritted through that enough to weather the storm. In nonconference play we didn’t do a great job of getting to the free throw line and tonight obviously we showed that we are capable of making those shots.”
Jeffries scored on a strong take to the hoop on the game’s opening possession but it was SIUE who posted a 9-3 run to claim early momentum. The Cougars led by four points before Didenko got going as the 6-9 transfer from Georgia Tech made a pair of three-pointers in the span of 1:26.
UT Martin soon went on a 16-3 run, turning a three-point deficit into a 10-point advantage late in the first half. Simon was responsible for eight points while Mikel Henderson splashed a pair of three-pointers during the run. A Didenko layup with a little over two minutes to play before the halftime break padded the Skyhawk lead to 30-20.
Simon added a pull-up jumper before Jeffries swiped a steal and took it coast-to-coast for a fast break layup with under a minute to go to make the score 34-22 in UT Martin’s favor at the intermission.
Leading all scorers at the half was Simon (13 points) while Doss’s nine points guided SIUE at the break.
Chris Nix made a layup for the first bucket of the second half – providing the Skyhawks with their biggest lead of the evening at 14 points.
Andre kept UT Martin’s lead at 14 points (47-33) after a pair of free throws off a Cougar technical foul with 14:04 left to play. After SIUE pulled within single digits, an old-fashioned three-point play by Andre at the 10:10 mark extended the Skyhawk advantage out to a dozen.
The Cougars tallied five unanswered points but a Simon dunk and Andre trifecta nudged UT Martin’s lead back out to 13 points with a little over four minutes remaining.
The Skyhawks’ success at the free throw line did not allow SIUE to get back in the game as Jeffries made six of UT Martin’s final 10 free throws in the final 1:46.